Climate denialism and reasonable doubt

As we all know from the TV series on lawyers, in a court the defense only has to show that there is reasonable doubt in order to free the accused from all charges. To do that, the defense attorney can just show that a particular line of evidence is doubtful, so that the judge or the jury cannot be 100% sure that the defendant is guilty. However unlogical this might seem, it makes sense to me that we all are innocent until proven otherwise.

This is how justice works – it’s not how science works. A theory is valid only until proven otherwise, that is a fact. But in order to throw away a theory, a scientist has to do a lot more than just showing that it has some flaw, limitation or incoherence. On the other hand, the validity of the theory doesn’t depend (at least a lot) on the personality of the scientist(s) who created it or on the methodology. At least, that’s how I see science.

Now, let’s look at the recent IPCC and University of East Anglia polemics. In the first case, we have a scientific body that used non reliable sources in some cases, which is a major flaw, given that it should only use peer-reviewed literature. But it is preposterous that tabloids like the Sunday Telegraph (link) use this as a pretext to cast doubts on the whole IPCC reports and it is revolting to see how the media hype has led to an increase in popularity of climate denialism, when denialists never use peer-reviewed literature to support their claims (there is none, obviously).

In the second case, we have another scientific body filled with scientists with giant egos (unfortunately, a very common thing), that may have used their power in the academic field to prevent global warming “skeptics” from using their data on climate. This is pitiful, but, again, does nothing to override the huge amount of evidence supporting the well-known link between anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

Serious research often shows how we hardly can predict what will happen in a hotter world. A recent study in Science shows that the role of water vapor in climate change is higher that previously thought (Guardian). In contrast, another study shows that the Artic sea ice is melting much faster than expected (CBC News). There is room for debate, of course. But by emphasizing only the discoveries that cast some doubts on the negative consequences of climate change, denialists aren’t just expressing doubts on global warming theory, they are deliberately manipulating the science.  It is easy to see why they do this: they are in Exxon’s payroll (The Independent).

Yet another scam in the EU ETS

A “phishing” scam has resulted in a millionaire fraud in the EU Emissions Trading System. Hackers managed to gain access to the accounts of several companies from Europe, Japan and New Zealand, transfer millions of euros in allowances to other accounts and re-sell them (Spiegel).

Like the carousel frauds, this kind of fraud is only possible when we have a system of property rights on the atmosphere. Like speculators, fraudsters are just using the many loopholes in modern financial markets to make a huge profit. Their gain, the planet’s loss.

Analysis of pledges to the “Copenhagen Accord”

The bogus Copenhagen Accord, negotiated among a small group of countries, asked for countries to send non-binding emissions reductions pledges to the UN until the end of January 2010. The World Resources Institute has made a nice interactive chart where we can see that these pledges add up to 12-18% reductions by 2020 from 1990 levels (link), much less than the 25-40% demanded by the IPCC to stabilize CO2 atmospheric concentrations by 450 ppm.

More eloquently, the Climate Action Tracker mentions that only two countries have submitted pledges sufficient to keep global temperature rise at 2 ºC (Japan and Norway) (link). According to an MIT model, these pledges will result in a temperature increase of 2.8-4.3 ºC.

The best we can get from 17 years of negotiations is a non-binding agreement that will result in runaway climate change. Now, we have two choices: pray for the best of fight for our rights. What will it be?

Bombing for peace, burning oil for the climate

The recent State of the Union Address by Obama was a remarkable display of doublespeak. The nobel peace prize talked of peace and nuclear disarmament while announcing a record high in military spending and a reinforcement of spending in nuclear weapons. The environmentalist talked of climate and energy reform, while announcing his support for nuclear energy, agrofuels and offshore drilling (dubbed as clean energy sources by the US President).

For Friends of the Earth US, this was a kick in the gut for environmentalists (link). They’re right, of course, and they deserve our support for launching initiatives like “Five Ways to Solve Global Warming Without Wall Street” (link).

Glaciers still melting at alarming rates

Last week, the IPCC issued a press release admitting a mistake over the melting of Himalayan glaciers. The 2007 report mentioned that it was very likely that these glaciers would disappear completely by 2035. That conclusion was wrong and unsupported by scientific data (Guardian). Along came the usual denialist hysteria.

Global warming denialists, the experts on wrong conclusions unsupported by scientific data, used this finding as an “evidence” that global warming is a hoax, that the IPCC report is a mere compilation of lies, etc. Which is curious, given that I’ve never seen a denialist admitting a mistake – and there are plenty of mistakes to admit in denialist literature. But, moving on to real science, the latest data from the World Glacier Monitoring Service (link) shows that most glaciers continue to melt at record rates. In fact, the conclusion that many of world’s glaciers are doomed to disappear in the next decades is supported by scientific data.

Mass murder in Iraq: not only bombs kill people

The constant war on Iraq has left its trace of environmental degradation. Radiation from depleted uranium and dioxins from bombs combine with the degradation of sewage and health systems to create a scenario of high rates of cancer and birth defects (Common Dreams). These are the findings of an Iraqi government report, another piece of evidence which shows that a slow genocide is taking place in this country since the first Gulf War.

The REDD mafia

The logic is simple: let’s give a monetary value to forest conservation, by giving carbon credits to forest owners who don’t cut down trees, and we’ll stop deforestation. But anyone who knows or cares a bit about land grabbing realizes that it will rise when forests are commodified. That’s what’s happening right now all over the world, even before the REDD proposal is formally approved.

In Papua New Guinea, a native leader, Abilie Wape, from the Kamula Doso Peoples, was kidnapped and forced at gun point to give away the rights for the carbon stored in the idigenous’ forest. In Kenya, a UNEP-funded REDD project in the Mau forest has led to evictions and threatens the cultural survival of the Ogiek hunter-gathers (OneWorld.net).

In order to allow our industries to go on polluting, we are ready to give money to mobsters and participate in acts of genocide. As Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of Indigenous Environmental Network puts it,

Everyone who cares about our future, forests, Indigenous Peoples and human rights should reject REDD because it is irremediably flawed, cannot be fixed and because, despite efforts to develop safeguards for its implementation, REDD will always be potentially genocidal.

Carbon trading fraud is worth billions

In the past 18 months, a huge carousel fraud resulted in the loss of 5 billion euros in the EU. The fraud consists on buying allowances from the Emissions Trading System from a country that doesn’t charge VAT, selling them to a unregulated broker, charging VAT for the sale and disappearing with the money before state authorities show up to charge the VAT from the trader. The Europol estimates that, in some countries, up to 90% of the market volume was caused by fraudulent activities (Europol).

The first suspicions that something was going on came in late 2008, when there was an unprecedented increase in the trade volume of European Unit Allowances and market volume peaked. When France, the UK and the Netherlands changed their taxation rules to prevent carousel fraud, trading in those countries dropped by 90%.

Protests in NY against carbon trading

This wednesday, climate justice activists and scientists gathered to oppose the 2nd Annual IGlobalForum Carbon Trading Summit, where bankers and lobbyists discussed how to make a profit from trading permits to pollute (Act for climate justice). Some nonviolent direct actions followed: the revolving doors were blockaded and a meeting in a hotel was interrupted.

As usual, WWF and EDF were on the other side of the barricade.

Runaway climate change is on the way

One of the main problems we face is that climate change isn’t a linear process. When the planet heats up, natural mechanisms function as positive feedbacks, releasing more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and thus reinforcing climate change.

One of the major feedback mechanisms is the release of methane trapped in the permafrost as it melts. Now, a group of scientists recorded an increase in about 31% of methane emissions from the melting of the Artic in the 2003-07 period (Common Dreams). The finding, published in Science, highlights the danger of climate change spinning out of control.